Thursday, May 07, 2009

Our Physical Health

Poor diet, lack of exercise, and unhealthy lifestyle choices are responsible for 65% of cancer deaths - American Cancer Society, 06


As a Christian and a Doctor, ahem (ok I'll stop :P) I feel I have to respond to things like these. Our days are counted right? we can't add a day to our lifetime nor an inch to our stature right? So why even worry about things like these? diet? exercise? unhealthy lifestyle choices? Wrong. While we shouldn't lose sleep over these things we should take care of the things God has entrusted us and one of those things is our body. Now I'm not saying that we should go to a gym and hire a personal trainer and have fit abs and whatnot. That is not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that we have to 1. obey our doctors when they tells us we need to lower our cholesterol intake (meaning all that greasy food that loves to stick to our arteries) 2. When they tell us to lower the amount of sweets we eat (all that goody and unhealthy sugary junk we love so much, oh the pancakes with extra syrup! sorry...personal favorite) or eat healthier carbs 3. When they tell us to do some sort of excercise at least an hour a day (remember lazyness is no good, from a Biblical perspective it can even be sinful. The exercise could be something as simple as a walk around the block/park, walking the neighbor's dog/cat/sugarglider/younameit)
So granted we can't add a day to those 10/40/60/90 days the Lord had planned for us to live but we can live out those days in a healthy way, it could even serve to help us practice self control, I know it has helped me. But remember two things:
1. Not to make an idol of your body.
2. What truly matters before the Lord is our spiritual health (meaning don't do one thing at the expense of another).

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